Wichita eagle., 1887-05-24
INGALLS, ON SUFFRAGE.

| Below we give few extracts from TIT
speech delivered by Senator ingalls, al
Abilene last Friday night, his subject be
ing woman suffrage. The speech as re
ported in the Gazette filed five columns
Among many other things he said:
Let me pursue the subject further, and
Task your attention upon this proposition,
and that is whether suffrage is privilege
OF a right. The capacity of being counted
on the one side or the other-being among
the same number of those who, If they had
the chance and should be in the ma Jority
can enforce their DEGREES, in physical COM
bat, in war, in battle, if necessary. What
is this tight of voting9
The advocates of equal suffrage contend
that it is an Unborn, inalienable right, like
the right to enjoy the light of the sun and
the exercise of ones functions and facul
ties and powers. l think in the brief an
alysis that have been able to give you
of this subject that you will conclude with
me that the theory of voting is an inalienable
and Unborn right is untenable, and that
society has always held that it was priv
ilege to be conferred only upon those who
would exercise it for the public welfare
and for the general happiness.
What has suffrage been conditioned
upon? It has been conditioned upon ma
tivity, upon sex, upon religion, upon rank:
upon military service. upon residence. and
upon intelligence, but there never has been
in all the records of all the civilizations,
from the dawn of history down to the
present time, any recognition in any shape
whatever, that suffrage was the right Of a
citizen On account of his citizenship. .
If it is an Unborn, inalienable right, why
has society not allowed it to be exercised
BY every person who can prove himself to
have the necessary qualifications for a
voter?
But we even go further than this, be-
cause, unless suffrage is an Unborn and
natural right, then the argument OF those
who claim that women should per sc be al
lowed to vote drops to the ground. The
supreme court of the United States has
declared that it is not right. That the
right of citizen to vote is neither legal
nor constitutional right-that it is privi
lege conferred by the state, for reasons
that seem best to the state. The supreme
court of the state of Massachusetts has also
held the same way upon similar question
involving this whole controversy,
Therefore, l say we NAV regard it
as being finally and definitely
established that the claim that suffrage is a
natural and inalienable right Of a citizen
has no foundation in fact. AS citizens OF
the union and Of the state Of Kansas, called
upon to decide for ourselves upon the
question whether or not there should be an
indefinite extension Of the right of suffrage
to classes that are not now included,
wish to invite your attention to a few con-
siderations that appear to me to justify the
action of those who found themselves IN
able to give their support to the sixteenth
amendment proposed to the constitution of
the United States. And first an inclined
to believe that the suffrage in this country
has been extended to the extreme limit of
safety at the present time. For more than so
years as nation we have been standing on
the sea shore and on the mountain top
singing Hail Columbia, Happy Land.
Every band playing Yankee Doodle and
declaring that this was the asylum for the
oppressed and the homeless of all nations;
inviting immigration from every corner Of
the earth, and as soon as an immigrant ar
rives giving him quarter section of land,
and the right to vote, until at this time
labors in this country, more than we have
any capacity to employ, and we have so far
exhausted the public domain in our inju-
dicious distribution thereof, that in
ten years from this TINE there will
not be an acre of land on which
wheat or corn can be raised with
out irrigation, subject to distribution under
the homestead or preemption law. Immi-
grafton at the rate of from 500, 900 to a
million per annum is pouring in upon our
shores, embracing nihilists and anarchists
and socialists and communists, congregat-
ing in our great cities and even now rally
ing under the red flag and threatening per-
petuity and safety of constitutional liberty.
And yet if this proposed sixteenth amend
ment to the constitution should be adopted
as proposed by the advocates of this theory,
we are not only to enfranchise all the
males of this vast aggregation that have
threnged upon our shores, but we are to
give every woman that comes from every
quarter of the earth the same privilege we
give to the men, unlettered, illiterate, igno
rant, without information enough to under
stand our institutions or with no
capacity to read our language. My i'm
preston is that this is not wise or prudent
think it would be injudiciOus in the eX-
IRENE. and rather than invite as we are do
ing, immi grafton to this country-without
compelling any one here to depart-I am
confident it would be a wise measure to
prevent, by proper legislation, all other i'm
migration from any other country on this
earth for the next twenty years, [great
applause and allow the great mass of
people now here to assimilate and become
blended and welded together, to become
schooled and educated In the political plat
form and our jury systems and our national
institutions, and until we should have a
great mass of homogeneous American citi-
zens that would say to all nations of the
earth. this continent has been reserved for
Americans, from the north pole down to
the tropics. [Great applause.
| One common argument that is insisted
upon with great force by the advocates of
equal suffrage is based upon the fifteenth
amendment to the constitution of the
United States, which enfranchised the
slaves, or rather the freedmen who had
been slaves. 1t was logical TO allow the
freedmen to vote, if there is any logic in
politics but the logic of votes. 1t seemed
indisputably right that if the rebels were to
be restored to citizenship, there was only
one way to enable the freedmen to defend
themselves, and to enable them TO defend
themselves they also should be armed with
the ballot The fifteenth amendment was
a war measure, and not a peace measure,
and those who appeal to that for the pur-
pose of establishing the right of women &c
vote are in my Judgment exceedingly un
| fortunate. for in the light of events for the